The Scarecrow Read Online Free Page A

takes your chooks Friday night and Saturday night you take his. Who else? Elementary, deah boy!
    My clothes were steaming away on the end of the bed in the morning sun and I clambered into both of them. Someone leapt across the washhouse and held the door when I got there.
    ‘It’s me.’
    ‘Why don’t yuh say?’
    I went over to the tap and did my best to get what looked like plasticine to look like my hair again.
    ‘Whatcha been up to?’ asked Prudence, pulling her dress down.
    ‘Mind yuh own business.’
    ‘Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,’ Prudence said haughtily. ‘And please leave that seat up. There’s too many one-armed drivers around this dump now and that’s fuh sure.’
    She crossed to the tub, over which a cracked and spotted mirror was tacked to the wall, and combed her wealth of dark, gleaming hair. All along the window-sill were the discolouredbutts of roll-your-owns the menfolk had put down while they were shaving. There were some matches on the copper and I debated whether I should have a quick smoke or not. I decided not. I was not so cocky this morning about this growthstumping business. Rumour had it the Victor Lynch gang smoked like chimneys, but I had a sneaking desire to be a big guy some of these days.
    About ten o’clock Les came around, looking surprisingly confident. We squatted down, down by the rhubarb, and I passed on my fears.
    ‘I can’t understand why we didn’t see it that way yesterday, Les. Of course they’ll cotton on to who did it. They took ours and we take theirs. We’ll have to watch our step, boy, we’re in for a bashing any day now.’
    ‘It might be more than that, Ned,’ said Les. ‘Old man Lynch’ll call in the cops over this for cert.’
    My brain must have been addled on the Saturday not to think of these angles. We were right in the cart. It was only a matter of time.
    Despite the shadow hanging over us, Sunday must have been a big day, romantically speaking, for Les Wilson, because Prudence came with us to the Fitzherbert shed where we headed automatically to discuss our predicament. It was the first time and I do not know now why we let her into the secret. Maybe we felt past caring or maybe Les worked it cunningly somehow, or she could have just latched on to us, but she came anyway. Prudence was a great scout and, although she thought we were a bit cracked, she played along with the way we hid behind hedges and kept doubling back to corners to make sure we were not being followed.
    When we found eight or nine eggs in the shed Les and I were really rocked. I think we felt a bit small remembering our one brown egg.
    ‘Just can’t credit they lay like that all the time,’ Les said. ‘Maybe it’s just nervus reactshun after last night.’
    I had a sinking feeling that we had betrayed a trust in letting Prudence know about the shed but I had to admit having her with us brightened us up. I still maintain she had a dirty face, but I was coming around gradually to admitting she was ornamental in her own way. She was full of fun and Les seemed a new man, so, in the end, I was getting quite perky myself and beginning to feel we might get away with the big fowl raid. Before long, what with some pears from the overgrown Fitzherbert orchard, and the last of the Ardath cigarettes, Les and I were right back to normal and planning how we would sell the eggs and use some of the money to buy wheat. Prudence was a full-blown member of the gang now with her arms around her legs and her chin on her knees and a lock of hair over one eye.
    ‘Anyway all gangsters have molls,’ I said to Les, when we were in the orchard but Les was up a tree and said nothing.
    The roof of the shed was at two different levels, but one of the lower beams ran the full width, as a brace, and from this it was possible to hang down and swing by the crook of one’s knees. The beam was so roughly hewn it was almost round, but anyway Les and I had legs like iron. Nothing else for it,